


The Wasteland Chronicles

by ayoungvein



Category: All Time Low, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayoungvein/pseuds/ayoungvein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 69th Annual Hunger Games is not the wasteland it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calm Before the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This is a long-time attempt to write a HungerGamesAU that hopefully appeals to you, my readers. Not all the characters and pairings are introduced yet, I know that. Keep in mind, I own neither the Hunger Games or any of these band memebers- no matter how much I wish I did.

The sun beats down on the golden wheat fields, turning the strip of land into a panorama of sparkling yellows and pale greens from the grass and ragweed that grows forward as though attempting to kiss the blue skies. A cool breeze blows from the west, rustling the crops and blowing the hat clean off one of the worker’s heads. He makes no attempt to grab it, though, instead feeling the brisk wind breathing against the nape of his neck where a coagulation of sweat had collected. He scratches it.

“You almost done?” a voice calls out to him.

Jon Walker spins around, nearly tripping over the spade, before he sees a very familiar body sitting on the wooden fence to the field. He’s wearing Jon’s hat, the brim tipped over his eyes so all that’s visible is a yellowed smile and a stalk of wheat dangling from his teeth. A grin tugs at his features.

“Spence, what’re you doing here?” Jon laughs, abandoning his work to meander over to where Spencer sits and hoists himself on the fence, as well.

“Why, haven’t you heard, Jon Walker, I’m a farmer in this here wheat field,” Spencer drawls, yanking imaginary suspenders and chewing the wheat, thoughtfully.

Jon laughs again, a real rich laugh. He grabs the hat from Spencer’s head and shoves it back on his own, watching Spencer’s dark locks fall around his cheeks and into his icy eyes. “You wish you were a farmer, here, baker boy.”

“Someone’s gotta turn all this wheat into something,” Spencer reminds him, spitting out the stalk in his mouth and climbing from the fence down to the dirt path that leads through the hay fields. “You done working?”

“Nearly--”

“You’re done,” Spencer tells him cheekily, grabbing his hand and leading him down the dirt path.

Around them, the trees begin changing color. All the scarlets and sienna browns and burnt oranges that make up autumn are coming to life to mark the beginning of September. The autumn breeze continues to beat at their faces and at the golden hay fields and the green grass and the entirety of District Nine.

“We had another beggar today.” Spencer’s face darkens. “Crying for some food. She thinks her kid is going to be chosen this year.”

“The reaping’s not for another week, Spence, please don’t bring it up,” Jon mumbles.

Spencer makes a noise of acquiescence and doesn’t say anything further. Rather, he lets them fall into their comfortable silence as they follow the winding dirt path, further and further, until the wheat fields turn to barren land and the barren land turns to lavender mountains, suspended in the air above them.

They walk through the scenery for some time, hardly stopping and hardly talking, as they listen to the sounds of stray birds and rippling water around them. Finally, Spencer leads Jon through a niche between two giant mountains until they’re both faced with a beautiful oasis, tucked around a circle of purple mountains, snowcaps glistening where the clouds tickle the sky. With the sun beating down on the water, the reflection is as golden as the fields. Clear and pure and unadulterated.

“I love this place,” Jon whispers.

Spencer smiles, nearly mischievously, and in a matter of seconds Jon’s screaming and falling into the pool of water, soaked in his work clothes. But he hardly minds. The water feels refreshing on his sunburned skin and sweating body. Soon, Spencer is jumping in after him and spitting water from his mouth and laughing. 

And it’s hard to believe anything so beautiful exists in this nightmare.

“How was the bakery, bread boy?” Jon teases nonchalantly.

Spencer spits a mouthful of water at his friend. “Already told you. Morose. The fields?”

“Just look at me!” Jon indicates his red flesh and the sticky sweat still rolling down his face in the intense heat.

“Yes, Mr Walker, you’ve a very nice body,” Spencer giggles. His own torso is naked, and the flesh is pale and smooth and soft-looking beneath the ripples of the oasis.

But Jon pushes that thought from his mind as he responds back, in an equally preposterous, luxurious accent. “Ah but, Mr Smith, you’ve forgotten that young body of yours. So lithe. Why, I haven’t seen legs like those since I was a young’un.”

Spencer snorts, “If the Capitol heard you making fun of them, they’d reap you in a second.”

Jon shrugs, wading over to the edge of the pond where a gray rock juts into the water. He hoists himself upon it and lays down, spreading his limbs out until he feels the scratching of grass against his palm and water lapping against his feet.

Spencer follows suit, laying beside Jon, and brushing hands with him, their palms both moist from where the water had painted it. Finally, Spencer intertwines their fingers together, squeezing their hands together. It’s like the people in those books Jon has, Spencer decides, absentmindedly. The way they’d hold each other’s hands as if to say, you don’t have to face the world alone.

“Spence?”

“Yeah.”

“Here.” Jon hands him a daisy he’d plucked from the earth beside him.

Spencer grins at the gesture, releasing Jon’s hand to begin picking the stark white petals of the daisy off. “ _The odds are in my favor_ ,” he murmurs, picking off a petal and watching the cotton white fall to the ground, “ _The odds aren’t_.”

Picking up his own daisy, Jon follows suit. This little game they’ve been playing for many years. A stupid child’s game to quell their minds and distract them from their imminent fate. 

Watching another odd fall to the ground, Jon sighs in frustration. “The odds aren’t even close to being in my favor. That drought had me taking out tesserae like crazy. You’re lucky you’re a baker.”

“Lucky?” Spencer echoes hollowly, “Jon, if luck existed, my name wouldn’t be in there twenty-four times.”

“Yeah, but it’s luck that I met you.” Jon’s expression softens.

“Was it luck that your name’s in there with mine?”

“Spencer….” Jon begs, and his friend stops staring at the plot of ground where a pile of petals had taken up home. Instead, he turns his face to stare at Jon. The icy pools of water in his eyes bore into the warm brown of Jon’s where the only image reflected in his pupil is Spencer, suspended in front of that oasis.

Finally, Jon leans in to press his lips against Spencer’s. It’s quick, nearly three seconds long (Spencer counts), but it’s perfect. The quick pressure of his lips against Spencer’s, where the taste of stale bread and pond water falls upon his tongue and envelops his senses whole. Both of them squeeze their eyes shut as though willing this moment to last forever. But it doesn’t. Moments of perfection rarely do. And Jon is pulling away from Spencer, opening his eyes and grinning at him widely as though he never saw anything so beautiful in his life.

“What was that?” Spencer whispers into the blowing breeze.

And Jon stands up, wading back into the water and winking. “For luck.”

 

  
\---

 

“I don’t want any excuses this time,” a voice booms.

“I said--”

“I know what you said, boy.” The man leans back in his leather chair, rocking himself a bit, thoughtfully. “And I told you, I didn’t want excuses. There should be no excuses as to why a Wentz can’t compete in the Hunger Games this year.”

Pete nods, so small against his father’s looming figure- even when sitting. They’re in his office, a tight little room. Circular with rounded bookshelves, all crafted of the finest mahogany and a desk in the middle where Mr. Wentz sits, stacks and stacks of papers in front of him, many of which are addressed from the Capitol.

“You better be the first to volunteer.” His father glowers. “There hasn’t been a Wentz in the Hunger Games since your great-grandfather. And this year, that needs to change.”

Pete nods obediently, before being excused and padding out of the office.

He decides to retire early, following the winding staircase to his room before ignoring the spacious canopy bed and crawling out the window to the roof.

The September night’s breeze blows his hair five different directions, but he pays no attention to it as he stares up at the full moon, blaring down upon District 1, wondering how it is that everyone is small in this district but acts like they aren’t. Everyone is so small against the shadows of the skyscrapers. Their silhouettes dance like miniature people in the starlight, and Pete blinks to dispel the phosphenes from the celestial bodies out of his eyes.

He knows his father means well. That he just wants an excuse to be proud of his son. After all, Pete may be a Career; but he’s hardly had a chance to show his talent to the world, yet. He’s hardly been able to bring home the glory like last year when District 1 won. And there was celebrations, galore. And pride. Glory. Recognition.

He lays down on the roof, feeling the cool shingles against his cheek. The moonshine splays across his body, weaving a lullaby from its light and dancing across his body, rhythmically. Pete falls asleep to the sound of the moon.

And that’s when it happens.

Pete falls into a dream. But it’s not an ordinary dream. It’s one of those dreams that feel much realer than they are.

He dreams of a beautiful boy with bright blue eyes. They’re staring at him in a sad way that’s not really meant to be. And they’re crying. This beautiful boy with the sad eyes is crying over a body, a shadowy body that’s nothing more than a ghost upon the ground. 

Pete is watching from a third party, a voyeur in his own dream. A sentry, at best. Trying to decipher whose figure it is upon the ground and who the boy with the silvery-blue eyes are. Masked by tears and bathed in the faux moonlight of his dream, the boy keeps crying. Sniffling. Sobbing. Choking. Pete takes a step forward in his dream, observing this miniature boy who doesn’t think he’s bigger than he is; but rather, he knows he’s small and accepts it with an air of confidence and composure. 

That’s when Pete sees it.

What this beautiful boy is crying about in District 1. He’s crying over a darkened body; but upon closer inspection, Pete’s racing heart plummets. Drop into his stomach. Stops dead. He’s watching himself.

This boy he doesn’t know, with the sad eyes, is crying over his own body. His own, very dead body that’s laying on the roof of Distrct 1 with the moonlight splayed across it, dancing and weaving and trickling down like a celestial pond. Like the sky and water reversed themselves just for Pete. Like the stars rearranged themselves just for this beautiful boy with the sad eyes.

And all Pete can do is watch his corpse swim in the light.

 

  
\---

 

The stars beat down through the window, lighting up the darkened room- even if just barely. He sits against the sill, cheek pressed to the cool glass, and exhales a cloudy fog onto the window. It’s a shaky breath, nearly nervous in the pale light of the night.

“Bill?”

“Yeah, Sisky?”

“Are stars dead?”

“Yeah,” he whispers back, “they are. Why?”

The blonde boy shrugs, leaning back into the other boy with them: Butcher. Butcher throws a comforting arm over his friend’s shoulders, and they watch William against the window, staring up at the very dead stars. “Just wondering. They look so alive.”

“Maybe they just don’t know it yet,” William says, feeling that his metaphor applies somewhere else. Perhaps, to this wasteland of a district. The way everything feels so dead here, yet everyone is alive. Or as alive as anyone can be here. There’s a difference between being alive and living, William decides. 

“Are you scared, Bill?” Sisky asks.

William opens his mouth to speak, but Butcher beats him to the punch. “Everyone’s scared, Sisky. We always are.”

They’re like rats in a cage. Waiting and waiting for the experimentation. The death. Vaguely, William wonders if dying hurts.

“One more week, though,” he goes on, “and we can breathe easy.”

“How? We’re not Careers, Butcher,” William says dully, “We must be the only kids here who don’t want to kill and cheat and die for our district.”

“Shut up. Don’t talk like that,” Butcher snaps, “Someone might volunteer. Someone always volunteers.” He’s reassuring himself more than the other two.

“You know…,” Sisky finally speaks up, voice quiet and contemplative, “Bill can sing.”

“Sisky!” William snaps at him this time, hazel eyes narrowed. He brushes a strand of his long, scraggly hair behind his ear and goes back to staring out the window. 

When Bill was young, his mother used to take him out and show him the stars. That was before his sister was reaped, though. That was when things were happy and no one was sad and no one died for nothing. That was when she’d grab both their hands and lead them with her kind smile out the screen door, sitting them on the railings to the porch and pointing upwards.

“That’s Orion’s belt,” she’d say, pointing to three stars.

William would stare at the belt and the Milky Way and the entire galaxy and wonder how it could all fit up there.

“And that’s the North Star, William,” she’d coo in his ear, “If you’re ever lost or homesick, that light will guide you home.”

Bill remembers the way that star shined that night. It shined like an apology, flickering to Bill in the night; the next day, his sister was reaped at just twelve-years-old. He remembers how the North Star never guided her home, but it sure did shine the night she died. 

“I wasn’t teasing you,” Sisky says, bringing Bill back to present. To reality. “I want you to sing me a lullaby.”

“We’re not little kids, Sisky.”

“I know,” he sighs, twisting his shirt impatiently in his hands. Frustrated. “But everything was easier when we were kids. My mother doesn’t sing anymore, and I know yours doesn’t. Their hearts are too broken.”

“What makes you think mine’s not?” Bill huffs against the glass, trying not to think of his sister on the screens. Her face young and pale. Her eyes kind and dead.

“Because,” Butcher interjects, “you’re stronger than you look, Bill. C’mon. Sing to us.”

Sighing, William pulls away from the window and into the tight-knit circle that makes up the triad. The three of them and everything between. He wracks his brain, trying to remember a song from when he was young and when his sister was alive and his mother still smiled.

Hope, it seems has faded.

Finally, though, Bill remembers a distant sound. An echo of a memory in his mind. He clears his throat and sings softly into the night, “ _Subjects are thrown around the room, looking for the ones that got away, a feeling of soft anticipation, another confrontation I won’t make._ ”

Sisky curls into himself, humming along, sedated, to the song. 

And as the song hits its cadence, Bill finally feels like the world is alright, if just for a second. It’s funny, the power of song. The power of his voice through the silent room, cascading across Butcher and Sisky like a warm blanket.

“ _Run, run, what are you running from?”_

Above, the North Star shines down upon William Beckett, apologizing.

 

  
\---

 

  
Thunder rolls across the darkened sky, a gallery of clouds strewn in front of the stars as thick splatters of rain fall from the sky, droplets falling onto Jon and Spencer’s heads as they run through the wheat fields, leaping over bales of hay, the mud slapping onto their boots and sticking to them as they make their ways home.

It takes them about ten minutes of running through mud and fields and dirt roads sporadically spread with deep puddles before they reach Spencer’s house, the light on the front porch calling him home like a personal beacon. The two fall onto the front step, under the shade, and huff and puff from exhaustion.

“That storm just came out of nowhere,” Spencer pants.

“Yeah,” Jon agrees, staring up at the night sky.

Absently, Spencer grabs Jon’s hand, telling him- no, whispering to him- that he doesn’t have to face this storm alone. That he never will. That Spencer will be behind him no matter what. 

“Spence, I have to go.”

“I know.”

“Goodby--”

But Jon’s words are interrupted when Spencer crashes their lips together, grabbing onto Jon’s face frantically. His eyes slam shut, and he tastes the rain on Jon’s lips and tries so hard to memorize each droplet. Jon’s stoic for a second, unsure of what to do, before he slides his arms around Spencer’s waist and pulls him flush against himself. Trying to keep the rain from getting through the cracks. Trying to meld them into one being.

Spencer makes a satisfied noise in the back of his throat that Jon mimics before Spencer is sliding his tongue into Jon’s mouth and trying to ravish it entirely. Jon’s tongue retaliates, and soon the two of them are fumbling and sliding against each other, like awkward teenagers who just discovered something new.

But perfection can only extend so long, and soon Spencer breaks away from Jon, staring at his rain-tasting lips that now flush a shade of red from Spencer.

He giggles nervously.

“What was that for?” Jon smiles, thoroughly amused.

“For luck,” Spencer whispers, grabbing his hand and kissing his fingers before releasing them and watching Jon disappear into the horizon.

Alone and tucked into his porch, Spencer grabs a nearby daisy, plucking the petals from it and murmuring under his breath, “ _The odds are in my favor. The odds aren’t. The odds are in my favor…. The odds aren’t._ ”

And the petal falls to the ground like an omen.


	2. Addresses in Ghost Towns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She remembers before he got ‘better’. Before when there was screams every night for more instead of just childish whines. She remembers the pale, sickly skin and the dying veins that had all collapsed. She remembers the chills and shakes and pants and sickness that overtook him until he’d be a sobbing mess on the bathroom, crying and shaking and expectorating. She remembers everything about how the Morphling stole her best friend.

“Please, I need it!”

“No, Gabe.”

“Please, just a little bit. Please, I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying,” a bossy voice says to the moaning figure on the bed before turning away from him, standing akimbo, and opening the blinds to the pitch dark room. The sun bleeds through. Golden beams splay across the bed, revealing the ringed silhouette of an olive skinned boy, curled up and sweating through the sheets.

“P-please, Vicky,” he moans, grinding his teeth and clenching his eyes shut. “Please.”

“Gabriel Saporta!” she hisses, tone adamant, “You’re not getting any Morphling. Ever. Now, get up; we’ve a big day ahead of us.”

She marches down the stairs, slamming the door to the sounds of his groan before walking into a quaint kitchen scented with tea and toast. Around the table, Gabe’s parents are sitting with their newspapers in hand and mugs clenched tight in the other.

Mrs. Saporta turns towards Vicky at the sound of her petite steps and offers a gentle smile. “How is he?”

“He’ll be fine,” she assures them, all smiles and manners as she slides in one of the seats, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Saporta, your son is in good hands.”

“Thank you, Vicky.” She stands up and wipes her hands before disappearing into the adjacent room where the sounds of the radio can be heard, distant and hardly there over the crackling of static.

Vicky drums her fingers on the table to alleviate the boredom.

Finally, though, a groggy Gabe Saporta enters the kitchen, stifling a yawn and stealing a piece of toast from his father.

Mr. Saporta smiles, nonetheless. “Glad to see you’ve an appetite again, son. Was worried that drug took the best of you away.”

“No, Papi.” Gabe smiles through the bread in his mouth. “I’m hardly a casualty in this war.”

“You will be if you keep up with this damn withdrawal!” Vicky snaps, silencing the hopeful atmosphere. “We’ve six days until the reaping, Gabe. Six days to get you into shape. Six days to kick an addiction. Are you ready?”

In the next room, the static hums.

 

 

\---

 

The sunrise shines across the outskirts of District 6, all syrupy oranges and cascading yellows across the endless horizon where the interstate crumbles and meets the pale desert. In the midst of the shining light and seas of rolling dunes stands an abandoned gas station, from hence the transportation district was begun. The wasteland is barren.

Victoria Asher struts across the dunes, surveying the area with a hand closed over her eyes to block out the violent rays. Already, she can feel sweat against her flesh, and her skin feels stuck to her bones; but she ignores it. Behind her, Gabe pants to keep up.

“F-fuck, Vic, why do I have to do this?” he chatters, still overtaken with hot and cold flashes from his withdrawal.

That’s the thing about Morphling, Vicky notices. It takes and takes and takes. It takes from the body until it’s nothing left but a sickness upon the mind. A disease. A plague. And Gabe’s been infected, lethally.

She remembers before he got ‘better’. Before when there was screams every night for more instead of just childish whines. She remembers the pale, sickly skin and the dying veins that had all collapsed. She remembers the chills and shakes and pants and sickness that overtook him until he’d be a sobbing mess on the bathroom, crying and shaking and expectorating. She remembers everything about how the Morphling stole her best friend.

“Gabe, shut up,” she says bluntly.

“You know,” he says, reaching her. The veins in his neck throb, painfully. “We’re not a district known for Careers.”

“Yeah,” she snorts in rebuttal, “but we are a district known for out-of-shape Morphlings who die in the cornucopia.”

Every year, it’s the same thing. Two addicts will enter the arena, jittery and itching for another hit, before the bloodbath takes them. Surprise leaps, and they’re left a mass of flesh and bone in the middle of it all. Vicky cringes at the thought.

“So? What makes you think I’ll even be chosen?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. All that matters is what _they_ think; and to them, you look like a piece of fresh meat. Survival of the fittest, Gabey baby.” She pats his arm.

“I’m not going to survive any games without Morphling,” he tells her, eyes honest.

Because that’s what Morphling does. Morphling morphs the mind until there’s no room left for reality. It hollows the heart until there’s no room left for anybody else. Not even Vicky, who whispers in all her loneliness, “And I’m not going to survive anything without you.”

Gabe frowns, catching her eyes. “Vic, I’m trying. I really am. I’ve been up at the crack of dawn with you all week, sprinting across this damned desert. I’m tired.”

“That’s the Morphling talking, Gabe.” She says his name like an apology.

“P-please, Vic,” he stammers as she reaches into her pocket.

“Gabe, I really am.” Her eyes shine down on him like the dawning sun, tears sparkling along the horizon. “I care about you. I do.”

She pulls out a timer and whistles, watching Gabe struggle to sprint forward, racing the clock.

 

 

\---

The rain continues to beat lightly against the window at the bakery, a soft pitter patter to provide a proper soundtrack for the mindless task or rolling out dough. Back and forth…. Back and forth…. Spencer watches the dough mold and morph in front of his eyes, watching the flour cake and cover his hands like a white blanket of fresh snow.

And he tries really hard not to fucking cry. He does.

He tries to keep himself distracted and ignore the saline threats in his eyes, the ones that threaten to pour down and expose his vulnerabilities.

However, just as the rain pours, so does the tears. He sniffles and wipes his nose with the sleeve of his shirt just as his boss hurries over to the scene.

“Smith, I told you not to even come in today,” he scolds.

“We need the money.” Spencer wipes at his eyes with his flour-soaked apron.

“Smith,” his boss sighs, face also caked with flour and yeast, “go home. Your mother’s sick. She needs you. I’ll close shop tonight.”

Spencer nods.

With a half-hearted smile, his boss claps him on the back and escorts him from the bakery, into the oncoming storms that had rained and drowned District 9 the past two days. Spencer pulls his jacket on and heads for home, feeling the cool droplets beat against his body as though taunting him.

He tries to whistle to ignore the tears rolling down his face, hoping the rain masks them.

For once, Spencer feels like he’s drowning. Like he’s choking and screaming at the top of his burning lungs and aching chest for help; but no one hears him. To them, he’s the baker boy.

He remembers the other day, at the oasis, with Jon. He remembers the smile the other boy gave him (when he thought Spencer wasn’t looking), the way their hands fit together like puzzle pieces, and he remembers the way their lips crashed together like heaven, itself, had never seen anything more beautiful in its life.

Then, the storm had come. Sweeping away with it, the dregs of those perfect moments. Spencer had gone home to see his mother, in the middle of a coughing fit, that had resulted in a pool of blood dribbling from her lip. He remembers the way she looked, sad and horrified and so, so sick. Unable to do anything about it as Spencer wiped it from her lip and kissed her forehead, her forehead sticky with a sheen of sweat. He remembers the dregs of those perfect moments didn’t even matter in that moment.

“Spencer!” a voice calls, and his heart drops.

Sitting on the step of his porch is Jon Walker, smiling and waving at Spencer like he hasn’t seen him in an eternity, a rancher hat poised lopsided atop his head and flyaway hair.

Around them, the thunder begins to crash.

Now or never, Spencer sighs and approaches Jon.

“Hey, Spence. How was work?” Jon asks, standing up and shoving his hands in his pocket.

Spencer keeps his head bowed and doesn’t say anything.

“Hey.” Jon frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” Spencer sniffles, hearing his voice plugged with weakness.

He remembers when he had gone home last night and wiped the blood from his mother’s mouth. He remembers the way she had croaked to him with cracked lips, _“I ironed you an outfit for the reaping._ ” And her icy blues had leaked with tears, mirroring her son.

“ _Thanks, Mum_ ,” he whispered back, kissing her cheek.

She smiled, then. It was a sad smile but a smile, nonetheless. Then, Spencer felt something cool and metal pressed against the palm of his hand. Looking down, he noticed a small silver band pressed into his had- a ring.

She smiled again; and this time, Spencer could see the tears running down her cheeks. “ _I want you to meet someone, Spencer. I want you to meet someone wonderful who you’ll spend the rest of your life with, and I want you to be completely happy with them. And I want you to give that ring to that special someone. Your father did that for me_.”

Fully and properly, tears had streaked down Spencer’s face, too.

Now, the ring burns in his pocket as he walks the three steps to his front porch, standing awkwardly beside Jon as though the time at the oasis was just a dream shared between the two of them.

“Are you okay?” Jon asks, in vain, watching Spencer’s eyes rain.

“N-no!” he wails, suddenly throwing his arms around Jon and burying his face into the crook of his neck, sobbing. “It’s my mother, Jon, sh-she’s so sick.”

“Oh.” Jon’s quiet. “I’m sorry, Spencer. I really am.”

Spencer tightens his hold on Jon, no longer trying to meld them into one being and no longer attempting to keep the rain out, for it is inevitable that there will be cracks. There will always be cracks in which things slip through and fall apart. In which the ebb and flow of life cracks and scars.

“Just hold me,” he cries.

And Jon does, tightening his arms around him and pulling the boy close, while the ring in his pocket burns.

 

 

\---

The cityscape is dark, thick gray ashes raining down from the sky like tufts of snow. Everything is obscured by the soot, and smoke pours up to touch the stars until the sky is polluted with a screen of smoke and soot that tents across the district. Over the pollution, sounds of industry roar and hum in the middle of the nowhere hours. Across the cityscape, everything is black.

A shadow streaks through the rain, disguised in the gray ashes that continue to fall.

The silhouette follows a light that’s on in a window to a nearby house, also covered in the industries’ finest productions. With the reaping only five days away, the factories in District 8 are on full swing, aiming to please. Climbing through to one of the lights, the shadow is finally revealed to be a young boy, slipping in through a window way past curfew.

His feet clatter to the floor with a thump, alerting the other three boys in the room.

“Alex, you’re getting soot everywhere,” the one with black-and-blonde hair scolds, as he peeks up from the top of a pile of fabric he’s busy threading with a needle.

“Sorry, Jack,” the boy known as Alex pants, “it’s like fucking winter out there.”

Jack nods in forgiveness before holding up the denim jacket in his hands where an obscene patch on the elbow sticks out. “How d’you like it?” He throws the jacket to Alex. “Sorry about the patch. That’s all the fabric I had left.”

“Th-thanks,” Alex’s teeth clatter as he slides the window shuts and throws on his newly-mended jacket. “Hey, Zack. Rian.”

The aforementioned boys smile up at their friend, watching as he takes a seat on the small bed with Jack before tipping over until his head is in his lap. Absently, Jack puts his thread and needle down to card a hand through Alex’s caramel hair.

“Thanks,” he yawns, “I had a horrible day at work. Assembly lines fucking suck.”

“I know,” Zack says with a groan, “I worked well past curfew last night.”

“You’re lucky you two don’t work the assembly lines,” Alex says, feeling his muscles sore and his bones immobile.

Jack rolls his eyes. “Because sewing outfits together is much easier. Please, Alex, thread this needle for me.”

He snickers as Alex pushes his hands out of his face. “Dude, you know what I mean. Dressmaking’s got to seem much more relaxed than a factory job.”

“Oh, it is,” Rian agrees.

“I’m almost glad to be working, though,” Alex says, “Keeps me distracted from the reaping.”

“And here we go again….” Zack mumbles with an eye roll.

Alex ignores him, face paling considerably as he begins rambling off a list of ‘what ifs’ that all include one of them being reaped. What if Alex is chosen as the Tribute? What if Zack dies in the arena? What if Rian wins the glory? What if Jack leaves Alex?

“Alex, calm down,” Jack scolds, “No one is leaving. We’re together on this, okay?”

“You don’t know that,” Alex pouts.

“Alex.” Jack bends down to kiss his forehead. “None of us are leaving. You’re not leaving. Trust me. I never want to lose my best friend.”

“Then how can you all be so calm about this?!” he demands.

“Alex, calm down,” Jack repeats, his light ministrations against Alex’s head slowly calming the boy anyways. “Don’t think about the reaping. Just think about us.”

Sleepily, Alex nods.

Zack and Rian watch the two best friends with something more in their eyes. Watching the way Jack watches Alex in his sleep. The way his eyes light up like the obscured moon outside. The way he smiles as Alex smacks his lips in the midst of his sleep. They watch the two best friends in love with each other.

And from the shadows, something else watches, too.


	3. Whatever Tomorrow Brings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You always say that, though,” Alex says quietly, thoughtfully, reproachfully. “You always promise me things. What does it even mean, Jack?” 
> 
> Jack thinks for a second, not at all offended by Alex’s question. He hadn’t meant to be rude; the reaping had just set everybody on edge. “It means you’d give up forever to make that thing come true.”
> 
> “And would you give up forever for me?” Alex finds himself asking.

It cuts through the air, streaking by in a flash of bright silver and worn bronze before settling against the target. Bulls eye.

“Nice one, Pete!” A voice calls over the constant noise and thuds of knives against wood.

The aforementioned boy looks up with a small smile, staring at the knife in the human cutout, staring at the practiced throw and its destination. His smile is forced, though, as if he doesn’t want to be there. As if the knives in his hand are heavier than they’re supposed to be, burdening him.

“Thanks, Andy.” He walks towards the board, wrenching the knife back out and adding it to the bundle.

The long-haired boy smiles this time, staring at Pete like a hero or a god or both. Or something else Pete doesn’t want to be.

Around him, the three other Careers are throwing knives and arrows and even practicing jabs with machetes. Andy Hurley is throwing knives with Pete, aiming for a target, but only the latter had hit a bulls eye. Had made the company around them stop and stare.

“You volunteering this year, Wentz?” Meaghan Camper asks. Her dark hair is pulled up in an untidy bun as though she hardly has time for looks and vanity. Then again, Pete thinks, in light of the Hunger Games, he doubts anyone does.

Though, he can’t stop thinking about the boy from his dreams. Because the boy from his dreams had been angelic- had been beautiful. His silvery-blue eyes gleamed at Pete, shining with sheens of tears. His mousy blonde hair had been tousled and filled with dirt and grime and what looked like blood, but Pete had never seen anything more perfect.

He tries to remember every detail of this boy, constantly staring around the district and wondering where he was. If he’s even out here, somewhere, in this hell. If he’s tucked away in one of these houses, training with swords, to kill Pete. If he’d killed Pete.

Pete’s mouth goes dry, and he tries to ignore the elephant in his head. 

To his family and his friends, the Hunger Games meant nothing but glory.

To Pete, it meant nothing but death.

“Pete, you even paying attention?” Andy asks, waving a knife in his face. “I just asked, I’ll take you in a contest?”

“Nah,” Pete sighs, loosening his grip on the knife, “I don’t feel much like practicing today.”

“Why?” The red-headed girl speaks up. Ashlee Simpson. “We’ve less than a day before the reaping, and I don’t know about you two, but I’m planning on volunteering.”

Her eyes are manic and her smile even crazier as she whirls the knife through the air. It hits its target. Bulls eye. Right in the heart.

And almost like bloodlust, she smiles.

 

\---

 

The jaunty café tinkles dully with each new customer that enters and exits. The smell of crisp bacon is sizzling on the stovetop, and the waitresses bustle around in their tight leather dresses and tall black boots, taking orders and sashaying their hips seductively. Outside the window, the cow fields lay not so far away, and the mooing from the cattle echoes around them, a quaint soundtrack for the bustling around in the shanty shack of a café.

At a corner booth, one of the lights flickers sporadically over top the three youth sitting at it. Despite the upcoming reaping, neither of them look very grim; in fact, each have their own individual smiles, having just finished snickering at some joke.

“Aren’t you glad you came out with us, Brendon?” The tall, handsome boy asks. His chestnut hair falls into his face, into his blue eyes, into his pearly smile. Not far away, a dark-haired waitress sneaks a longing glance his way.

“Wasn’t up to me.” The other shrugs. He’s much shorter, shoulders broad and arms heavy, with a mop of black hair that seems overgrown and often abandoned. He runs a large hand through the strands, tousling it. “My old man told me, no more cattle fields until I’m safe at home from the reaping. Guess he wants to allow me my last day of freedom.”

“Don’t say that,” the final boy says. He has a mass of curls sitting on his head, and he looks younger and overly-anxious. He bites his lip. “There’s so many people in District Ten, we’ll probably be passed by unnoticed.”

“Ian, it doesn’t work like that,” Brendon Urie sighs,

“Cheer up, Brendon, we have one reaping-less day. Let’s take advantage.”

“Sometimes, Dallon,” he says calculatedly, “I think you forget we’re in the middle of war.”

“War? Bren, we haven’t been in war for nearly a hundred years.”

“We’re the products of war, though.”

“Products, maybe,” he hums in agreement taking a chug of the drink in front of him and making a face at the acrid flavor of the coffee. (Brendon always stares in amusement when Dallon gives him the rest of his coffee because, here, in the outer districts, coffee is as expensive as sugar and ceramics.) “But, soldiers? Brendon, we’ve never been soldiers.”

“Might as well be,” he mutters gloomily, staring at the ice dancing in his glass of water. “We’ve already been drafted.”

Ian makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “Must you two be so fucking depressing all the time? I can’t take you out in public, anywhere.”

Brendon chuckles, “Dallon started it. Has nothing better to do than talk about death and dying.”

“What else is there to talk about?” Dallon quirks one of his perfect brows. “According to you, all we are is one big battleground.”

Agitated, Brendon takes a swig of the water and spits, “Love, then. Let’s talk about love and life.”

Dallon leans in close, leering at his friend. “Have you ever been in love, Brendon?”

And that’s when Brendon pauses. Because he honestly doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what love feels like, and he feels stupid for wanting to talk about it to his cool friend, Dallon. Dallon’s surely been in love before. He’s surely been in and out of love with plenty of girls; Brendon can’t see a girl who wouldn’t want to fall in love with his tall and handsome friend: his high cheekbones, his symmetrical smile, even his icy-blue eyes are refreshing to dive into. 

Brendon, on the other hand, doubts he could fall in love if someone was pushing him into it. No one would fall for him. He’s awkwardly shaped with his big head and big nose and big lips and ugly, brown eyes. Nothing refreshing about him. He’s the acrid taste of coffee, whereas Dallon is the icy water on the table before him.

“Leave him alone, Dally,” Ian interjects, almost sensing Brendon’s discomfort. “Not all of us can be the bull in the cow yard.”

Dallon laughs. It’s rich and real and flavored with coffee that blows in Brendon’s face like a harsh breeze. 

He tries not to succumb to it.

“I was just wondering,” Dallon tells him offhandedly. Apologetically.

“Have you ever been?” Brendon counters finally, watching Dallon the same way Dallon had watched him. Trying to make his friend squirm.

But Dallon doesn’t. His jaw doesn’t harden, and his eyes don’t glaze over. Rather, he smiles softly, staring at Brendon with a look in his eyes that Brendon’s never seen before. “Yeah. Yeah, I have been.”

They stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. Brendon can practically close his eyes and trace the contours of Dallon’s face in midair. He can practically name every single shade of blue encrusted in his eyes. The sapphires. The azures. The ceruleans. Dallon’s visage had become like a second appendage to Brendon in their years together, and he had never been sure if this was a good thing yet or not.

“Ooh!” Ian interjects, breaking the moment of tranquility between the two of them in a single catcall. “Dally’s got a girly!”

Brendon giggles at this, but he watches Dallon’s face never change as his eyes glance away from Brendon’s in that split second. As they break apart. As Brendon feels the distance fall back into place.

“Shove it, Ian.” Dallon’s laughing, too, so he doesn’t really mean it.

And Brendon’s about to ask ‘who’ - who Dallon could fall in love with and keep it a secret from his two best friends. Which girl is lucky enough to have caught those cerulean, sapphire, azure eyes. Which girl is lucky enough to count the shades in them and not feel guilty for remembering each and every one. However, a long-legged waitress brings over three heaping burgers to silence them.

 

\---

 

“Who do you think it’s going to be?”

“What do you mean?”

“C’mon, let’s place bets. Like we used to when we were young.”

“Sisky,” William sighs, “when we were young, things seemed easier.”

“Why can’t they be, though?” The two of them are sitting on the windowsill in William’s bedroom, watching the sunset filter in through the net curtains. All the purples and pinks and cobalts of the leaking sky fall to the horizon in a pile of watercolor that William wonders if possible. Nothing has ever been more tragically beautiful to him before. “Why can’t we just run away, Bill?”

“They’ll find us, Sisky, and when they do, the punishment will be worse than the reaping.”

“Worse than the Hunger Games?” Sisky finds himself asking.

Bill’s silent for a moment, contemplating. What could be worse than murdering for glory? Murdering for pride and money and fame. Murdering for the pure fun of it. He shrugs. “Probably.”

“I’m sick of living like this,” Sisky moans, “I’m sick of living in a culture built on the sick fun that these games are. Sometimes, Bill, I’d rather die.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Bill hisses sharply, remembering Courtney. Remembering her small, little smile. Remembering her eyes. Remembering the stars that had shined for her. That had apologized when she had died.

Sisky understands. “Sorry.”

He lays his head on his friend’s shoulder, feeling the warmth and comfort of the connection. Around them, the colors of the sunset seep to the bottom of District Two, melting into the earth until they’ve mixed and collided into unintelligible shades.

“Sisky?”

“Yeah, Bill?”

“Promise me you won’t get reaped?”

“I promise.”

Silence falls once again across the two boys on the window sill. It whispers across the corners of room, hanging onto the edges and vertices until Bill’s hands are clammy and his heart palpitating and his breathing erratic and he asks the inevitable, “What if my name gets drawn, Sisky?”

The younger boy’s head pokes up from its comfort on Bill’s shoulder and looks his friend dead in the eye. “Bilvy, I’ve always followed you. Everywhere we went. Ever since we were kids. What makes you think I wouldn’t follow you to the Hunger Games?”

“…because it’s against the rules?”

“Screw the rules!” Sisky stands up, hands gesticulating wildly in light of the setting sun. In light of the pinks and purples and cobalts and golds that pour through the net curtains. “You’re my best friend, Bilvy, I’d never fucking leave you.”

“You better be serious, Sisky,” Bill nearly chokes.

“And you better promise me not to get reaped.”

Bill nods, but the words fall from his mouth, useless, “I promise.”

 

\---

 

Jack’s room is an array of miscellaneous objects and odd knick-knacks that litter the room higgledy-piggledy. On top of the cheap pine dresser lay odd ceramic bowls in shape of turtles and penguins and other mythical creatures that Alex had never seen before in his life. Empty spools of thread and needles hung from his door along with old shoelaces and dress ribbons in various colors. But that’s what Alex loved best about Jack’s room, he supposed, the randomness of it all. The way it captured Jack’s persona perfectly.

They lay on his bed, like they always do once the sunsets. Jack had taken a flashlight and was now bouncing it off the walls, making shadow puppets for Alex’s amusement. It was growing dimmer, though, as Jack hardly could afford batteries these days- even on those months when dress sales seemed to soar. 

“You know, Jack, I’ve never actually seen any of these animals before,” Alex tells him, “well, besides, on the screens for the games.”

“You will, one day, Alex,” Jack whispers to his friend, “One day, me and you are going to travel far away from here. One day, me and you are going to have great adventures.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jack smiles softly, setting the flashlight down and brushing a strand of Alex’s hair from his face. The other boy lays curled against Jack’s chest, listening to the _thump thump thump_ of his heart. Listening to the pitter-patter of it beating against Alex. Listening to Jack living. “I promise you that.”

“You always say that, though,” Alex says quietly, thoughtfully, reproachfully. “You always promise me things. What does it even mean, Jack?” 

Jack thinks for a second, not at all offended by Alex’s question. He hadn’t meant to be rude; the reaping had just set everybody on edge. “It means you’d give up forever to make that thing come true.”

“And would you give up forever for me?” Alex finds himself asking.

“Yes,” Jack says in a heartbeat.

… “Why?”

“Why not?” Jack asks. He grabs Alex’s hand and laces their fingers together, something he likes to do when the stress of life gets to them and they each need to know that the other is, indeed, there for them. “Alex, you’re the one thing in this world that makes sense. And I’d give up forever for that. I’d rather live in eternity in this life with you than one day without.”

At that, Alex smiles. He grips Jack’s hand tighter and tighter as though trying to meld them into one being. As though being two separate entities is no longer enough. As though being just Alex Gaskarth means nothing if Jack Barakat isn’t there with him.

They settle against the bed against, against the downy pillow and the downy duvet and the shitty sheets and everything that makes Jack’s bed home and comfort for Alex. Everything that makes Jack’s bed full of promises. Full of promising adventures. Full of Jack and Alex and that little tangle of forever between the two of them. 

Outside, the wind howls at the glass.

“Jack?” Alex whispers into the night. “I want to grow old with you.”

“I know, Alex. Me too.” 

They squeeze hands together, wondering if maybe their wrists will snap or break. Maybe you have to love a person enough to want to get hurt by that person, even just a little.

And as Jack starts snoring softly in Alex’s ear, the comforting breaths and rise-and-fall of his chest pushing him closer to the brink of sleep, Alex still can’t help but lay awake, staring at the shadows of the ceramics on the wall and wondering about the reaping tomorrow. Wondering about the horrible reality of their lives. Wondering about the doomed feeling of whatever tomorrow brings.


End file.
